Sappho's Fragment 44

Fragment 44 is one of the most complete remnants of the work of Sappho, a female poet living in Lesbos during the 7th century B.C. In this fragment Sappho imitates Homer’s poetic style as well as his themes, such as the wedding of the Trojan prince Hector to Andromache. Though a scene never illustrated in Homer's verses, this poem is an allusion to the wedding he briefly reminisces in Book 22 of the Iliad.

Poem Text

Anne Carson made the following English translation of Fragment 44.

(Ellipses indicate missing words or verses.)

...

Kypros ...

herald came...

Idaos... swift messenger

...

and of the rest of Asia... imperishable fame.

Hektor and his men are bringing a glancing girl

from holy Thebe and from onflowing Plakia—

delicate Andromache on ships over the salt

sea. And many gold bracelets and purple

perfumed clothes, painted toys,

and silver cups innumerable and ivory.

so he spoke. And at once the dear father rose up.

And news went through the wide town to friends.

Then sons of Ilos led mules beneath

Sappho

Sappho (/ˈsæfoʊ/; Attic Greek Σαπφώ [sapːʰɔ̌ː], Aeolic Greek Ψάπφω, Psappho [psápːʰɔː]) was a Greek lyric poet, born on the island of Lesbos. The Alexandrians included her in the list of nine lyric poets. She was born sometime between 630 and 612 BCE, and it is said that she died around 570 BCE, but little is known for certain about her life. The bulk of her poetry, which was well-known and greatly admired through much of antiquity, has been lost; however, her immense reputation has endured through surviving fragments.

Life

The only contemporary source for Sappho's life is her own poetry, and scholars are skeptical of reading it biographically. Later biographical accounts are also unreliable.

Chronology

Strabo indicates that Sappho was the contemporary of Alcaeus of Mytilene (born c. 620 BCE) and Pittacus (c. 645–570 BCE), and according to Athenaeus, she was the contemporary of Alyattes of Lydia (c. 610–560 BCE). The Suda, a 10th-century Byzantine encyclopædia, dates her to the 42nd Olympiad (612/608 BCE), meaning either that she was born then or that this was her floruit. The versions of Eusebius state that she was famous by the first or second year of the 45th or 46th Olympiad (between 600 and 594 BCE). Taken together, these references make it likely that she was born c. 620 BCE, or a little earlier.

80 Sappho

80 Sappho (/ˈsæfoʊ/ SAF-oh) is a large main-belt asteroid. It was discovered by Norman Pogson on May 2, 1864, and is named after Sappho, the Greek poet.

13-cm radar observations of this asteroid from the Arecibo Observatory between 1980 and 1985 were used to produce a diameter estimate of 83 km.

References

External links

Sappho (organisation)

Sappho was an English lesbian social club founded in 1972 by Jackie Forster and others.

The club, whose namesake was the poet Sappho of Lesbos, met every Tuesday at The Chepstow, a public house in the Notting Hill district of London. The group advertised their meetings in the magazines Time Out London and City Limits.

Until 1981, the club published an eponymous monthly magazine with a peak circulation of about 1000 copies.

Forster founded and edited the magazine after writing for Arena Three (of the Minorities Research Group), which had folded soon before. Sappho distributed their magazine at their meetings, and also at such lesbian venues as Gateways, a nightclub in Chelsea. Back issues of the magazine are now held in the Hall–Carpenter Archives.

Sappho continued to meet regularly until the late 1980s, each week inviting guest speakers such as Miriam Margolyes, Maureen Duffy, and Anna Raeburn.

References